The Mayflower

Dear National Park Services,

We all know July 4th is the day that real patriots celebrate America. Just like we all know pilgrims were the first real settlers. That your website continues to spread alternative facts about the first colonization is both ridiculous and misleading. I want it to stop. 

Two years ago my place of employment decided they would try to change history by pretending Jamestown was the first place that mattered. I believe, in part, this was due to a page that is still published on the National Park Service’s website. In an apparent history lesson designed for children it clearly states Virginia, not Massachusetts, as the birthplace of our great nation. In case your volunteer blogger/media influencer is confused, Massachusetts has always been the real home of America.

I understand New Englanders may not seem like the most hospitable people, but let me reassure you, we would kill for our friends and family. It is for this very reason so many of us never leave. 

Even though other teachers (in other schools) are now actively denying Massachusetts as their original home this does not mean the 2026 graduates of Boston Elementary won’t know the truth. 

My kids are smart. Wicked smart. They know that the years of yore cannot be transformed by outside information or “differing viewpoints”. Their views are fixed. Just like Plymouth Rock.

I can already tell what you’re thinking. Yes, it is technically true your organization is not responsible for the new school curriculum. Did the National Park Service demand I turn off ESPN during social studies? Did the National Park Service tell me to stop playing “competitive” Mayflower with second graders? Of course the school system is ultimately to blame. 

The reason I’m writing to you is because I thought we were on the same team. After all, it’s the park service that prevents teachers from jumping ship.

Don’t believe me?

Two words: summer vacation. 

Approximately all two months of a teacher’s vacation is spent working from home. If you’ve ever met a New Englander with a teacher’s salary then you know this means three sets of extended family roommates. Including kids under nine.  The National Park Service serves as a necessary tool not only for unsupervised children in the summer, but for the adults who desperately need all three bedrooms for themselves. Like the fabled White Anglo Saxons before us, we parent best from afar.

Unfortunately your once-cherished organization now forces many New England families between a rock and a hard place. Do we want our kids running around all day in the sunshine or do we boycott your treacherous organization only to have children play in the foyer?

I’m willing to admit your services are crucial. Without parks kids can’t ice skate on a cold winter pond or make out in the woods. Kids might never learn how to fish.

But you know who did fish? The pilgrims. While Jamestown settlers beat the crap out of the Indians, we were down at the harbor peacefully making lobster rolls. We respected our ocean because, like the Indians before Jamestown, we cared about that kind of stuff. And really, isn’t that what New Englanders do?

We take care of our own. We may be out of practice when it comes to shouting our importance to the world, but if you think we’re going to stand by while a bunch of park people put down the New England patriots, you’ve been skimming.

As one American to another, the blurb on your website comparing Jamestown to Plymouth is not only wiping out our history, it’s ruining our ability to ethically send kids outside for the entire summer.  For the sake of me, my wife, her brother, and her brother’s wife with six kids under 12, please help us get the children out of our home. 

-All New England public school teachers and some of upstate NY